The Midwife's Apprentice is a fine book for young adults produced by many small artful strokes. There are no flourished displays of literary devices and techniques here, only the traditional storyteller's voice wellmodulated and perfectly pitched for its intended audience. Cushman's supple prose is excellent for brief descriptions of states of mind, individual people, and the natural world. An example of each will illustrate her descriptive dexterity. On Brat's pitiful longings when she is a homeless wretch at the beginning of the book: ".. . but dearly would she have loved to eat a turnip without the mud of the field still on it or sleep in a barn fragrant with new hay and not the rank smell of pigs who fart when they eat too much." On Magister Reese: "He was as long and skinny as a heron, with black eyes in a face that looked sad...